Aids Awareness Week

The Joy And Pain Of Being A Buddy

December 03, 1992|By Bill Schoch Guest Columnist

Becoming a Buddy was not an easy decision for me to make.

For many years I had thought about getting into volunteer work at Riverside's Hospice Unit. I had been made keenly aware of the necessity of this type of work during my wife's struggles with leukemia. It also took me many years to heal from my loss and to finish raising my family.

FOR THE RECORD - Published correction ran Friday, December 4, 1992. A photo caption in Thursday's LifeStyles section incorrectly spelled the name of Bill Schoch.

Now finding that I had extra time in my life, and after reading an article in the newspaper on AIDS caregivers, I thought that it would be a very good cause to work for. In talking to some of my friends, I was made aware of the Peninsula AIDS Foundation's need for Buddies, volunteers who serve as companions and friends for those with HIV or AIDS. I contacted them and was promptly registered in their Buddy training program.

After getting into this program, I started to have second thoughts - doubts as to whether I could take the stress and be strong enough to get a Buddy through his or her rough times. Then I started meeting some of these amazing individuals with HIV infections. They turned my doubts to positive thoughts of how I could help by becoming a Buddy.

In September 1991 I finished my Buddy training (It never is really finished. There is always something new to learn). In October I was assigned to a Buddy. I was both nervous and excited about my assignment.

PAF called me about noon on a Thursday to give me of my Buddy's name and telephone number. I promptly called my new Buddy and made arrangements to meet him that evening.

I knocked on his apartment door and was told to come in. My new Buddy was sitting across the room, just finishing a telephone conversation with a friend. On first impression he looked somewhat frail, which was more evident as he stood to shake my hand.

My first meeting with my new friend James lasted four hours. We discussed the ground rules for my being there, for both him and me. Also, what I could and could not do for him, and what our likes and dislikes were. All in all, we found that we had many common interests.

As I got ready to leave his apartment that first evening, James offered an outstretched hand with his thanks for my coming to see him so promptly. I told him that that didn't work for me, as I reached and gave him a hug good-bye. He answered "Thanks. I needed that."

From that day on, the handshake and the hug became our standard way of greeting and departing from each other.

James was an extremely interesting and complex person. We had great conversations about our families, food, art or any topic of the day. We liked going for long, quiet drives on roads we had never been on before. He would usually bring along one of his favorite tapes to listen to on the car stereo.

We did many things that he had never had a chance to do before. His favorite place was Waller Mill Pond. He liked feeding the ducks and geese and walking around the trails when he could.

Once while walking on one of the trails, I picked up some beechnuts and started cracking and eating them. James had never had one before, so we spent the next hour eating beechnuts.

I tried to find out about things that James had always wanted to do but hadn't had a chance to do. If I found it in my power to do some of them, we did it.

We often cooked together. He liked changing someone's recipe to fit his own taste. He was at a stage of his illness where he could still eat what he wanted without it bothering him. He once told me that some day he would like to try softshell crabs. I just happened to have some in my freezer. He ate three of the five I cooked for him in 15 minutes.

Occasionally I would lose track of him if the doctor put him in the hospital for blood transfusions and no one remembered to tell me. After one of these hospital stays James decided it was time to get his Christmas shopping done. It took several hours, but we finally finished and went home very tired. At first he didn't want to wrap them right away. I told him we needed to identify everything as to who it was for. We started doing this and ended up wrapping them all anyway.

These were some of the better times we spent together. The following day he was put back into the hospital.

And then there were the tough times. Times of days or weeks in the hospital and during the holidays. Blood transfusions, medication changes and mood changes. Quiet times when there was not much said, just holding his hand, wiping his face off or helping him go to the bathroom.

After the New Year, James started to deteriorate rapidly. He lost his vision, lost a lot of weight and became bedridden. With the kind care and attention of his family, volunteers and nurses James passed peacefully away to his maker on the first day of spring, 1992.